|
|
|
|
Building N530JY
|
Date: 8-1-2020
|
Number of Hours: 0.00
|
Manual Reference:
|
Brief Description: Why an RV-10?
|
|
Some people probably think it’s crazy to build an airplane. Maybe they’re right, but it actually isn’t as crazy as it sounds. Aviation is a tightly regulated industry with Byzantine rules and regulations. Having owned a Piper Lance for several years and worked as a pilot my entire adult life, I’ve experienced the bureaucracy of aviation regulation first-hand as both an owner and an operator. To understand how it affected our decision to build a plane, it’s important to understand the way we typically fly.
We use our airplane the same way some people use a motor home or a boat. We use it for travel when our schedule is flexible and we can afford delays for weather or maintenance. We sometimes use it for fun or adventure, like earlier this year when we flew up the Hudson River around the Statue of Liberty and along the Manhattan skyline, just because we could. Sometimes we use it as a grocery wagon, since my wife grew up in Japan and often likes to fly to places that have large expat-Japanese populations where we can get Japanese groceries. Sometimes we use it to visit friends, and sometimes to take people (especially kids) for rides to introduce them to general aviation. We don’t fly for business, as a reliable or timely means of transportation, or for charter.
Regulation of operations like those is necessary. People need to know that the airline they are entrusting to transport themselves and their families will do so safely without cutting any corners. Rules have made commercial aviation very safe. But regulation comes with a cost, and the regulatory cost has made general aviation (private ownership and operation of an aircraft) prohibitively inaccessible and expensive. For example, if the owner of an FAA-certified airplane (an airplane produced by a commercial manufacturer and certified as airworthy by the FAA with a type certificate), wants to install a new instrument in his or her airplane, let’s say a permanently-installed USB charger for a cellphone, it isn’t as easy as just wiring the device
|
|
Our Lance next to an RV-10 in Chicago
|
|
Good times in the Lance
|
|
Manhattan, just because!
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Copyright © 2001-2024 Matronics. All Rights Reserved.
|
